Like most things in life, people tend to fall somewhere in the middle between polar opposites.Let me explain.

Let's say you are going to bench press and you decided that you want to use a weight that will allow you to get around 8 reps per set.

The HIT approach: You are planning to do one all out set with 275. So you do a brief warm up, something like 135x8, 185x3, 225x2. The warm up is very brief because your focus is the one all out set with 275.

The volume approach (the textbook volume approach). You are going to do 4 sets of 8 with the same weight. Now if your best set of 8 is 275lbs, you know you won't be able to use that weight for all 4 sets. So your workout might look something like this: 135x8, 185x5, 225x8,8,8,8.

The blurred line : You are going to pyramid up in the 6-9 rep range. So your workout might look like this: 135x9, 185x9, 225x6-9, 275x6-9 . This isn't HIT, because there is fatigue being accumulated during the work up sets. It's really not volume since you are not repeating any sets. And you are really working up instead of just warming up.

The third approach is generally what people gravitate toward to once they have been training for several years and have reached the intermediate stage ( squat 1.75xbw, bench 1.5xbw, deadlift 2xbw,standing overhead press 1xbw, weighted chin up/pull up bw+50%).

The one draw back of this approach is that it's difficult to see where the warm up sets end and work sets begin, this is more than just a minor detail, because the overall workout volume and training load is affected by what weights you are using for your work up sets.

Sometimes we can make things complicated. Jeff Everson once wrote an article titled something like,You don't have to be a scientist to be a bodybuilder. Some really good bodybuilders couldn't tell you what they did for chest the day before.

So in effect what you are saying is that you have a pure hit trainer, a volume trainer and one that uses both systems to an extent. I would say use all three from time to time.

There have been a lot of threads lately about HIT vs volume. I wanted to start one dedicated to this sort of in-between approach. While many people would classify this as a volume type style of training, I wanted to show the fundamental difference between the two. Obviously this is nothing new or ground breaking, as I said earlier I feel like most people tend to gravitate toward this type of approach after some years of training. But I did put a twist on it that I have not seen before. I organized it in a way that will encourage progressive overload but in the BB style rep ranges. As well as paying careful attention to total volume.

WARNING! Not for the mathematically impared

3 rep ranges of ascending pyramid sets, pick one rep range for an excercise to use during your workout.

It becomes pretty simple once you go through one cycle. If anyone is interested just post the weight and number of reps and I can calculate it out for you.

Barbell movements are the easiest, but I have also used this for weighted chins/pull ups. Dumbell excercises work as well. But I would recommend using barbell movements the first time around until you get the hang of how it works.

I have obviously seen this approach work in my own training as well as several others that were interested in trying it out. It would be interesting to get feedback from more people.

well really it looks just like % calculations you can do on a Calculator. Intresting post but i do not see the need to make it complicated. I think warming up with more than 1-2 sets just wastes strength before your max weight. However each to his own.

well really it looks just like % calculations you can do on a Calculator. Intresting post but i do not see the need to make it complicated. I think warming up with more than 1-2 sets just wastes strength before your max weight. However each to his own.

Yep, it really is just some very basic math. What you see in this thread is actually the result of A LOT of trial and error.

What I have actually found is that by doing those work up sets with those percentages, it actually helped my performance on the last set. My body was already acclimated to the rep range and the calculated weight increases made the weight feel more comfortable and manageable.

I'm somewhat like you in that I always over analyzed my training. Yet some of the best trainers workout according to how they feel that day. Some figure out everything and put it on paper and try to follow a script when working out. I know I do. Others just walk in and say I feel like doing barbell inclines instead of dumbbell inclines today. They just wing the weight used and adjust on the fly. I'm here to tell you both approaches work.

Eddie Robinson was a duel threat as a power lifter and bodybuilder. He used a method somewhat like yours although I doubt he used a calculator. He would use four work sets outside of warm up. He would use four different weight/poundage but the reps would remain the same. He said when the weight was lighter he just would do the reps stricter and slower to make it hard.

There are obviously different training approaches that work for different people. And my motto has always been " if aint broke, don't fix it". Meaning if whatever training style someone is using is getting them progress and results there is definetely no reason to mess with it.

Several years ago I was stuck in training rut where I couldn't make any progress. I started working on these ideas in mid 2010.

The one really cool thing I found is that I have had training sessions where I would get to them gym feeling tired and not really motivated. Then I would start going through the sets and being able to get all of my reps planned for that session regardless.